Vern fired a Cannon in case you forgot, I read the books long time ago.

Though his astronuts would NOT have survived due to the tremendous acceleration in the gun barrel he did the best he could to cushion the shock .. Rocket technology works, in part, due to the researce Vern did He covered nearly every thing that NASA had to do .

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Nothing adds excitement like something that is none of your businessMy Home is where I park it.

It didn't. The core ran out of the chemical used to light the engines, and although some did several did not light - it impacted the water at 300mph immediately adjacent to the drone ship, taking out 2 of the drone ship engines in the process.

Musk said if they can get any video of the impact, it "should be fun to watch and we'll put out a blooper reel." I love this guy

WOW!!!! FINALLY got the bandwidth to watch the video. The sight of those two Booster's coming in for a landing. ... I do not believe they have ever had a "Return to earth" of an unmanned device, only the space shuttle and the Scaled ship have done that.

And they all land in "Glider" mode. not a powered tail first landing as in a Science Fiction movie. Only as of that flight. that kind of earth landing. NO LONGER FICTION.

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Nothing adds excitement like something that is none of your businessMy Home is where I park it.

Absolutely spectacular launch and side booster recovery!!! I guess "technically" the main booster DID "hit" the drone ship - at least parts of it apparently ...

Arch - My Model X gets about 250 miles of range and our incoming Model 3 (arriving next week) will get just over 300 miles. My understanding is the Roadster Elon put into orbit (the new version) has a range of just over 600 miles!

WOW!!!! FINALLY got the bandwidth to watch the video. The sight of those two Booster's coming in for a landing. ... I do not believe they have ever had a "Return to earth" of an unmanned device, only the space shuttle and the Scaled ship have done that.

And they all land in "Glider" mode. not a powered tail first landing as in a Science Fiction movie. Only as of that flight. that kind of earth landing. NO LONGER FICTION.

John, SpaceX has been successfully landing Falcon 9 first stage boosters for reuse after nearly all launches since their first successful landing December 22, 2015. The amazing thing about this landing was the simultaneous dual landing, not the landing itself.

Oscar Mike

Yep, SpaceX has landed about 20 rockets so far. It has become routine now.

I would never like to see the breadth of Elon Musk's SpaceX program as routine. This stuff is absolutely cutting edge, and Elon Musk is absolutely a brilliant risk taker. Kudos to Musk and his entire team, and thanks to him for an inspiring demonstration of entrepreneurship at its finest.

Yeah... of the three cores only one malfunctioned. This was with a predicted 50% chance of complete mission failure!

The cores have 9 engines each, and land using 3 of them. The center core came down with only one engine firing, and splashed in at 300 mph close to the drone ship.

This is why they use unmanned drone ships for the landings. Would have been really tragic if there had been crew on the ship.

With odds like that they usually use concrete or something dull as ballast for the launch. Elon wanted to do something "different and whimsical". So there is a Tesla, with a dummy in a space suit in the drivers seat, with a model Tesla and driver glued to the dash, headed out into the Solar system.David Bowie playing soundlessly on the stereo, "Don't Panic" displayed on the dash screen, "Made on Earth by Humans" printed on a circuit board, and a lot more little jokes and homage to science fiction greats.

yeah, those landing are cool. I'd like to see more footage of how they get back to the area of the landing pads. from separation to the time that the decent rockets fire again to slow it down.... remarkable really.

yeah, those landing are cool. I'd like to see more footage of how they get back to the area of the landing pads. from separation to the time that the decent rockets fire again to slow it down.... remarkable really.